


Altschmerz

by Liana_Legaspi



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, somewhat unresolved ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-07
Updated: 2017-01-07
Packaged: 2018-09-15 14:10:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,123
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9238418
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Liana_Legaspi/pseuds/Liana_Legaspi
Summary: Altschmerzn. weariness with the same old issues that you’ve always had—the same boring flaws and anxieties you’ve been gnawing on for years, which leaves them soggy and tasteless and inert, with nothing interesting left to think about, nothing left to do but spit them out and wander off to the backyard, ready to dig up some fresher pain you might have buried long ago.Yuuri has trouble adjusting to St. Petersburg.





	

Russia is a little over four-thousand, five hundred miles away from Hasetsu.

Yuuri is a little over four-thousand, five hundred miles out of his element.

He tries to convince himself that it's still better than the six-thousand, four hundred mile stretch between Japan and Detroit, but it's a moot point. Back then, Yuuri had a bigger supply of optimism to fall back on. Back then, he was eighteen and had all the time in the world. Now he's twenty-four and all he's got going for him is two suitcases' worth of clothes, a toothbrush, his phone charger, and a gold medal from Nationals tucked away alongside his costumes.

It’s noon by the time Yuuri’s plane touches down, and it should be symbolic. A checkpoint achieved, a documented moment in which he finally sets foot on St. Petersburg soil. The sunlight reflecting off of the freshly-fallen snow should also be a pretty sight, but all it does is kick his post-flight migraine up a couple notches. The airport coffee he’s been nursing isn’t doing anything to soothe his nerves—at this point, he’s hesitant to believe even good, Russian vodka could accomplish that—but dehydration on top of major jet-lag isn’t something he’s willing to deal with.

His face is so oily at this point that his glasses are in perpetual danger of sliding down his nose, and he’s got the same crick in his neck as the several dozen other passengers that got herded into economy class. In addition to that, he has yet to fully regain feeling in his legs after being crammed into a thirty-one inch wide seat for twelve hours straight so his motor control bears more of a resemblance to a toddler’s than someone with a silver medal in figure skating and a B.F.A. in Dance.

Looking at the smile on Viktor’s face though, Yuuri might as well be in a suit and tie.

The air in St. Petersburg is cold and sharp like it’s trying to rip the very air from his lungs, but Yuuri sucks it in anyway.

“Yuuri!”

There’s a world’s worth of a difference between a sleepy town in Japan and the second largest city in Russia. Yuuri gives up one of his suitcases without hassle and grips Viktor’s free hand, who in turn, laces their fingers together without thought. There’s a contagious sort of laughter in Viktor's eyes, and Yuuri doesn’t bother trying fight his own smile.

Yuuri’s been on land for an hour now, and he feels as shaky as he did during take-off.

“Yuuri,” Viktor says again, like his name is a song he never gets tired of, “welcome to St. Petersburg.”

* * *

Four-thousand, five hundred miles away from where Yuuri is now, there’s a rundown Ice Castle with chipped paint, cuffed boards, a Zamboni that’s days are numbered, and—if one were to look very closely—they’d find the words “ _A Castle for Yuuko, Yuuri, and Takeshi_ ” written in black Sharpie underneath on one of the bleachers.

Beneath Yuuri’s feet now is gleaming, thirty-by-sixty meter ice rink, currently occupied by three members of Russia’s team, as well as other a few other trainees. The oldest member—either “the prodigal son” or “the one that got stolen by Japan’s ace” depending on who you ask—stands twenty feet away, the ring of his fourth finger brighter than the gold on his skates.

Even without his glasses, there’s no ignoring the stark contrast between the Hasetsu Ice Castle and the Yubileyny Sports Palace.

There’s a lull in training that’s a combination of Yuuri’s incessant jet-lag and just the natural frame of mind that everyone seems to adopt after the Grand Prix and nationals finally draw to a close, a checkmark on a mile-long to-do list. Typically speaking, it’s just a fleeting thing, but if it carries on for too long, Yuuri knows it’ll come back to bite them, come the European Championships or the Four Continents, respectively.

The life of a competitive figure skater in a nutshell: either catch up or stay in the lead.

Yuuri woke up to his alarm at five in the morning feeling like he’d been chewed up by Satan himself and spit back out. The Folgers did nothing to erase the gross morning-taste from his mouth either—the one that never fails to convince him that something crawled in his mouth during the night and straight up died. He’s not sick—thank God, but he’s definitely not at his best. Yuuri wants to focus, wants to perfect whatever he can quickly so that _Viktor_ can start preparing for his own comeback, but the more he tries, the more he realizes it’s not happening. His skates feel like they’re a hundred pounds, and the stares honing in on him like laser scopes, making the hairs on his arms stand on end, don’t help any.

Yuuri suspects that even Viktor, who has patience in spades (something that’s been slowly been nurtured through the constant barrage of questions from the press and Yakov’s criticism), can’t possibly ignore that this particular training session is quickly proving to be a waste of time.

Viktor taps his pointer finger against his lips and considers Yuuri. “Should we take five? I can introduce you to everyone if you’d like. Would that help?”

Yuuri shakes his head, quickly sniping down that suggestion. “No, that’s all right. Should I go again from the top?” he asks instead.

Yuuri had managed to drag them both out of bed while it was still dark out and hustle over to the skating rink a solid hour before any else had arrived, despite Viktor’s attempts to coax him to sleep in. (It was a strange deviation from their normal script. The one where Viktor brings him back to the land of the living via his sheer obtrusiveness coupled with an abundance of kisses—like some parody of _Sleeping Beauty_ complete with a disgruntled Yuuri.)

Yuuri liked mornings about as much as how Kapoor liked it when people nicknamed his _“Cloud Gate”_ the “Bean,” but he’d decided somewhere around the tenth hour of his plane ride that showing up before anyone else would, for all intents and purposes, be easier. A way to bypass any awkward situations, an arrival without fanfare.

When people finally started to trickle in, they noticed them, stared some, but ultimately decided not to interrupt. So all in all, his strategy had worked remarkably well, discounting the fact that it brought Yuuri back to his senior year in high school—when Yuuko and Takeshi realized they were going to be parents and suddenly, Yuuri had the skating rink all to himself.

Viktor gives him a concerned look, one that Yuuri recognizes. It’s an expression he gets sometimes when he wants to help him but doesn’t want to push him too far either.

“Yuuri,” he starts.

“Viktor,” he responds, mimicking his tone, and saying nothing more because Yuuri doesn’t know what else to do or how to explain the turbulence in his head and in his chest.

He’s not sure how to tell Viktor that this isn’t anything new, that he’s spent his entire life feeling like he was on a different wavelength than everyone else. He doesn’t want to say that his stage fright is in a package deal with all ninety-nine of Yuuri’s other problems. And so, he’s reduced to begging. There’s an anxious, guilty knot in the pit of his stomach that makes him nauseous. Here he is, a Japanese skater in foreign territory who hasn’t so much as acknowledged his new rinkmates, and Yuuri wonders if this is what it feels like to be on trial; he’s the reason Viktor left Russia.

He had the fortitude to flaunt the fact during the Grand Prix, but this is St. Petersburg.

Viktor sees the look in his eyes and gives in, but only just. “Take five,” he tells Yuuri, eyes soft. “We’ll pick up where we left off.”

Yuuri doesn’t feel like sitting; there’s a nervous energy that numbs his fingertips, and so he finds himself tracing slow, graceful figures into the ice. Balancing on one foot and relying only on his center of gravity to turn. A spin there and a shaky sweep of his arms here. It’s almost enough to distract him. To give him some semblance of peace.

Naturally, Yuri doesn’t leave him alone for long.

Yuuri knows he’s been watching him since he came in, and so it doesn’t come as much of a surprise when Yuri glides up to where he’s somehow managed to maintain a bubble of solitude on a rink with at least seven other skaters. Taking up real estate in a sports facility that he’s been graciously given access to—Yuuri’s on a roll.

The look in Yuri’s eyes is stormy. Yuuri inwardly sighs but tips his head in acknowledgement. He doesn’t stop his improvised step sequence, but he does slow down enough so that Yuri knows he’s not trying to run away. He’s not sure he could deal with the aftermath if he did.

“Too good to skate with everyone else, Katsudon?”

“No,” Yuuri says, suppressing the urge to recoil at the question. “God, no.”

“Could’ve fooled me.”

The words “СцоцтигньоЙ Кагьчачпионщ” are painted in gold to contrast the blue of the walls. Yuuri’s got the _Rosetta Stone_ downloaded on his phone, but the longer he stares at the characters the less sense they seem to make.

Yuri does a quad Salchow in sync with Yuuri’s three turn. Yuri lands effortlessly, arms spread outward after raising them above his head mid-jump, and Yuuri can’t help but commit the image to memory, aware of the insidious, ticking clock hanging over Yuri’s head. Give him a few more months and tablespoon of Bad Luck, and it could be game over.

The silent career killer when it comes to sports that rely on pinpoint precision and absolute control of one’s body: growth spurts.

Yuri waits for him to catch up. The look he shoots him is accusing. “Knowing Viktor, I thought he’d be dragging you around the rink bragging to everyone about his fiancé, so imagine my surprise when I come in and you two are off in your own little world.”

Yuuri bites the inside of his cheek. “My Russian still isn’t very good.”

Yuri’s as merciless as ever. “We compete internationally, genius. We know English.” He sneers. “If I knew you’d be this bad, I would’ve gotten you a bottle of champagne myself. Do you seriously need liquid courage just to say fucking ‘hi’?”

Yuuri thinks they both know the answer to that question. He briefly entertains the thought of doing a quad flip but nixes the idea. Instead he smiles—a jagged little thing that doesn’t quite reach his eyes—and says, “It’s good to see you, Yurio.”

There. A barefaced white flag.

Yuri’s huffs out an irritated breath, but it does nothing to hide the sincerity of his voice. “Yeah, you too, Katsudon.”

(Later, when Viktor has one arm slung over Yuuri’s waste and his lips just centimeters away from the crown of Yuuri’s head when he asks him: “Are you happy here?”

“Yes,” Yuuri says, and it isn’t a _lie_ , per se. There’s a downward curl of Viktor’s lips that worries him. “Aren’t you happy to be back home?”

Viktor doesn’t even hesitate. “Home is wherever you are.”

He says it with a certainty that not even Yuuri can question, and it’s in that moment that Yuuri realizes that he could tell Viktor he wanted to move back to Japan or decide on a whim to live in the most remote places on earth, Viktor would do so in a heartbeat. Because change has never been hard for Viktor; Yuuri’s not sure if it’s just his strong mentality or if he’s simply always been adaptable, but Viktor never been scared of pulling himself up by the roots and starting anew.

For one guilty split-second, the word Hasetsu rests on the tip of his tongue. He swallows it back before it can manifest into anything. Maybe Viktor wouldn’t mind living in Hasetsu. Maybe where they are honestly doesn’t matter to Viktor—but Yuuri is a figure skater, and this is what he knows: Viktor, living legend or not, needs a good coach, and that coach just so happens to be a Russian man who lives in St. Petersburg.

Yuuri shakes his head and smiles up at Viktor, willing the creases in between his brows to go away. He kisses him, for good measure and because he wants to.

“Don’t worry about me.”)

* * *

 It lasts just barely over a week.

For eight days, the only people Yuuri interacts with are Viktor, Yuri, Makkachin, and—if gruff hellos and miniscule nods count—Yakov. During that time, no one truly seems sure what to make of it, the silver medalist training on the same rink as the winner of the Grand Prix and under Viktor to boot.

Yuuri jadedly registers that he’s just a guest here. Everyone else already has their own subgroups and routines. There’s no need to force anything, Yuuri knows, but that’s a sentiment Viktor seems to disagree with.

On their third night together in Russia, when they were in the middle of shopping for groceries, Viktor had asked him, “Wasn’t part of the reason for coming here instead of staying in Hasetsu was so you could have rinkmates, Yuuri?”

"Ideally, yes,” Yuuri had replied.

Bare fingers drummed against the green plastic of the shopping cart. Viktor had given him a speculative glance while Yuuri checked to make sure that none of the eggs in the cartoon were cracked before adding them to the slowly growing pile of food.

“Has anyone said anything to you?” At Yuuri’s confused look, he further clarified, “People have been welcoming? No one’s said or done anything bad to you?”

The immediateness of his answer and the way he blinked at him bewilderedly probably did more to soothe Viktor’s worries than his actual response. “Of course not, it’s—” He pursed his lips and gave Viktor a contemplative look and picks his words carefully, “I’m not competing for Russia.”

Viktor picked up on what Yuuri didn’t say instantaneously and raised his eyebrows. “Last I heard, Phichit was never competing for Japan.”

Eight days after arriving in St. Petersburg, Yuuri’s self-imposed isolation remains untouched just like the box of family photos he brought from Hasetsu and the dusty gold medals hanging in his and Viktor’s bedroom. He thinks that maybe Viktor’s going to let it drop. In hindsight, he should’ve seen this coming.

They’ve just passed the intersection they’d normally turn on to get back to Viktor’s apartment, when Yuuri first gets the sense that his fiancé is up to something. They drove to practice for once—not wanting to brave what the weather channels are calling the coldest week in St. Petersburg for even the twenty to thirty minute walk to the Sports Palace. Yuuri’s knees ache from practice, twinging every so often, and he has to fight to keep his lead-heavy eyelids from drifting shut. Yuuri swallows, throat dry.

“Viktor,” Yuuri mumbles, taking in the white, icy surroundings with a listless eye, “where are we going?”

Viktor pushes his silver hair out of his face, and the blue of his eyes bathed in the city lights is mesmerizing. Nine months later, and Yuuri’s still enchanted. “You’ll see,” Viktor assures him, a smile in his voice.

“Are we going sightseeing?”

It’s become something of a tradition between them, one that Yuuri can trace back all way to Japan, when he took Viktor to the Karatsu Castle. The last time they went out, it was to the Hermitage Museum.

Viktor takes his hand and kisses his knuckles. “Not this time, Радость моя.”

Thirteen minutes later, they pull up in front of an apartment complex Yuuri’s never seen before. There’s a layer of snow gathering inside an empty flower pot situated just off to the side of the entrance. Yuuri drags a finger through it.

When Viktor rings the doorbell, it’s Georgi Popovich’s voice that filters through the intercom. It takes point-six seconds for Yuuri to shake off his exhaustion-induced tranquility and become hyperaware of three different things. One, the car keys are tucked away safely in the pocket of Viktor’s coat. Two, he wasn’t paying close enough attention to where they were going to be able to create a mental roadmap of the way back home. Three—and this one’s the kicker—Yuuri turns to find Yuri and a handful of other skaters from the rink making their way up the steps to meet them.

 _Of course_ , Yuuri thinks.

* * *

Viktor and some of the other skaters (Pyotr and Misha, and a dozen other names that Yuuri doesn’t even have time to commit to memory) are raiding Georgi's kitchen—specifically the liquor cabinet, despite their host's frayed protests. Yuri had kicked his shoes off the second Georgi opened the door, mismatched socks on display. Viktor's coat is thrown haphazardly over the back of the couch, and for some reason, Yuuri feels like he’s intruding.

“It’s a shame Mila couldn’t make it,” Viktor sighs, a bottle of Smirnoff in hand. “It’s been so long since we’ve played Russian Roulette.”

Yuri’s face contorts from where he’s strewn across Georgi’s couch, still in his athletic wear, same as everyone else present. “I swear to Based God, Viktor, if you start stripping, I will throw your naked ass out the window.”

Yuuri wants to tell him not to drink too much. Viktor still needs to be able to drive them back afterwards, but he refrains.  
  
This is St. Petersburg. This is Viktor's hometown with its black-tailed seagulls and large skating rinks and his old rinkmates who act and look at each other like their family and not just people who happen to be on Russia's national figure skating team.  
  
The thought warms Yuuri's chest, so much that it aches. Because all this time he's been able to silence that worrisome voice in the back of his head that his own happiness and comfort—staying in Hasetsu, hiding away in some sleepy town in Japan—has always been at the expense of Viktor's.  
  
But all the same, Yuuri still hasn't taken off his coat.

Yuri's is draped over Viktor's, and Misha (if that’s even the right one?) threw his jacket at Georgi before making a beeline for the fridge. He catches snippets of conversation here and there, which is quickly dissolving into Russian that he can’t keep track of, and watches Yuri idly flick through his phone with one hand and cast Viktor a sour look when starts setting up shot glasses.

Yuuri's been to banquets, press conferences, and more competitions that he can count, but sitting on the frayed, beige carpet of Georgi's apartment with his legs carefully folded underneath him, hands in his lap, all he can focus on is the white noise. Yuuri feels almost _too_ light. Weightless, but in a way that makes him wonder if he’s even in control of his own body. It’s a lot like Detroit—before Phichit and before he was able to carry on a fluid conversation in English, back when the only person he spoke to at the rink was Celestino.  
  
He tries to swallow down the irritating lump in his throat, _ignores_ the nauseating way his stomach churns. He stands up, probably too quickly, judging by the way Yuri jerks from his position on the couch and stares at him.

“Katsudon?” he asks at the same time Viktor, pausing what he’s doing, calls, “Yuuri?”

He gives them a smile that he prays to God doesn’t look as paper thin as it feels and holds up his phone. His hand feels sweaty and cold at the same time. “Sorry, I just need to make a quick call—please excuse me.”

And then he’s out.

Yuuri makes his way towards the building’s entrance, biting back a curse when he realizes that, if he steps outside, he’ll need to ask Georgi to let him back in and won’t that just be awkward? Yuuri presses his back to wall of the hallway instead, biting his lips and clumsily thumbing through his contacts list.

Thailand is about four hours ahead of Russia, but thankfully it’s only six o’clock where he is now. He’s just about to text Phichit, _Hey, are you free?_ when a voice behind him calls his name.

Yuuri jumps three feet out of his skin—something he hasn’t done around Viktor in a good, long while. Unlike the past times he’s managed to startle Yuuri, the bemused, fond look that would grace his features isn’t present. No, Viktor’s brows are furrowed. He even raises his hands before taking a small step forward when he sees Yuuri’s face, and Yuuri observes the action with a pang.

The walls are an olive green, the carpet is a deep, grey color, Viktor’s left shoe isn’t on all the way, like he was in a rush and couldn’t even be bothered to put it on properly, and Yuuri feels hollowed out. Back in high school, he dissected a fetal pig for his biology class, cut straight into the creature’s gut in the name of an “ _A_ ” and to look at how it ticked. Viktor’s gaze feels a lot like a scalpel, but his arms move involuntarily, like he wants to hold Yuuri but doesn’t want to cause him further distress either.

It’s a push and pull that Yuuri thought they were over, but maybe he was wrong.

“Oh. _Oh_ , Дорогая моя—”

“Please, don’t,” Yuuri begs, knowing full well if he goes on, if he _apologizes_ for trying to help Yuuri open up and branch out, he’d cry and he doesn’t know when he’d stop. The hurt that crosses Viktor’s face is like a punch to the gut.

Viktor swallows thickly but nods. “Can I hold you?”

“No, no just—” Just what?

The silence that falls between them is deafening. Yuuri’s phone buzzes in his hand, but he doesn’t look at it. Doesn’t look at Viktor either for that matter.

Four-thousand, five hundred miles away is a sleepy town that almost no one’s ever heard of. Its facilities are below average at best. It’s quiet, it’s small, there are no monuments or museums. Most would call it boring; Yuuri’s always called it home.

Guilt gnaws at him from the inside out, and he wishes—not for the first time—that he could be as selfless as Viktor. Viktor, who declared without the barest hint of doubt that his home was _Yuuri_. The look Viktor gives him is a precarious one. Not a wine glass on left on the edge of the counter in a crowded room one but the blind man on a tightrope kind of precarious.

It’s not until Viktor’s hands enter his blurred vision that Yuuri realizes he’s close to crying.

“ПОТАНЦУЙ со мной?”

Yuuri’s Russian is nowhere near as fluid as his Japanese or English, but this, he understands. He takes Viktor’s hands. There’s no music, but neither of them mind.

Yuuri holds onto Viktor’s hands tightly and focuses on the comfort of band around his finger. He jadedly notes that, if Yuri or any of the others were to walk in on them now, they’d think it was unusual—that his skin was only as thick as paper—but for once, Yuuri doesn’t care. An empty hallway in an apartment complex that isn’t theirs is a far cry from a banquet hall.

They dance anyways. 

* * *

Viktor manages to persuade Yuuri to take the next day off from practice. He agrees mostly because he knows that this way, Viktor will get some extra time to himself to work on his own routine.

Even though he never said as much out loud, this was mostly to give Yuuri some downtime to adjust, something he’d been neglecting since he arrived. Yuuri’s orange suitcase remains half-full. There are pictures that he brought with him. His posters are tucked away somewhere along with them too—Yuuri had thought it’d be funny if he hung them up, but between the long flight and the growing number of days he’s been in St. Petersburg, the thought’s lost its appeal.

Yuuri slips his phone into his back pocket, kisses Makkachin on the head, and grabs his ballet equipment instead. The idea of taking break not so enticing when he tallies up the days between now and the Four Continents. When he opens the door, Yuri starts, fist raised mid-knock, and they stare at each other.

“Yurio,” he greets.

Yuri’s got his training clothes on underneath his RSF jacket and his tiger print duffel slung over his shoulder. Yuuri takes in the tell-tale beads of sweat and his disheveled blond hair with a serene eye.

“Does Yakov know you’re here? Or did you just leave without telling anyone?”

Yuri snorts. “That’s rich coming from you.” And then, “What was that last night?”

It was a combination of Yuuri’s pride and upbringing that prevented him from taking Viktor up on his quiet offer to head home last night. The thought of leaving was too close to a surrender for Yuuri’s tastes, and it left an ashy taste in his mouth. He gathered himself as best as he could, still a little frayed around the edges, and soldiered his way back to Georgi’s apartment in silence. The off-kilter feeling never fully left Yuuri, but he thought he’d done a good enough job at hiding it.

Evidently not.

Yuuri dodges his question with, “I’m going to the studio.”

The ‘studio’ being a quaint little place that reeked of Febreeze and was run by a doll-sized Russian who didn’t speak an ounce of English or Japanese but seemed nice enough. It was small—smaller than what Yuuri was used to at the very least, but beggars couldn’t be choosers. And Yuuri didn’t feel like scouring the city for something better anyways so he sucked it up and made his first monthly deposit on his membership before calling it a day.

“You’re welcome to come if you want.”

Yuuri has a feeling he’d come with or without his permission, but he offers it as a suggestion anyways. Yuri makes a sharp noise with his tongue but steps back to let Yuuri pass through the doorway. Yuuri hears Makkachin bark just as he locks the door.

Yuri trails after him like a ghost, glaring at the back of Yuuri’s head, but apparently not in the mood to make conversation. He keeps his head ducked over his phone his phone instead. The wind nips at Yuuri’s ears and pulls at his blue scarf. He clenches his jaw to keep his teeth from chattering and glides through the salt sprinkled streets, glancing over his shoulder every now and then to make sure he hasn’t lost Yuri. Unnecessary, considering the fact that he’s lived there for the majority of his life; Yuuri chalks it up to old habits, spanning all the way back to their days in Hasetsu when _Yuuri_ was the one guiding Viktor and Yuri around the city.

He catches Yuri’s eye and offers him a beatific smile. Yuri shoves his hands into his pockets and looks off to the side in response.

When they reach the dance studio, Yuri takes one long, unimpressed look, and says, “Yeah, no thanks.” His phone dings and his flicks his gaze back to the screen before putting it away. He jerks his head back towards the direction they just came from. “Come on, I’ve got something better in mind.”

Yuuri’s fingers feel like the winter chill has worked its way through his fingers by now, frozen them solid and now the slightest bit of opposing force will be enough to snap them off, but he nods amicably, breath coming out in visible puffs.

“Lead the way.”

St. Petersburg has many names. City of Bridges, City of White Nights, the Cultural Capital of Russia—looking at his surroundings now with Yuri guiding the way, he sees why it’s also sometimes called the City of Lions. Sculptures upon sculptures of felines decorate St. Petersburg, and Yuuri wonders if Yuri’s fascination stems from this. Yuuri so busy eyeballing the lion head hanging over the doorway that he almost doesn’t realize just where they are.

Yuri’s just walking up the cobbled steps when Yuuri grabs his arm. “Wait, Yurio—this is Madam Baranovskaya’s studio.”

He blinks at him. “Well, yeah,” he retorts, “where did you think we were going?”

Yuuri wonders if he honestly doesn’t realize the implications or if Yuri just wants to make him squirm. Either way, he mentally despairs.

“ _Yurio_ ,” he stresses, “Madam Baranovkaya’s a world-renowned ballerina and your choreographer.” The fact that he needs to remind Yuri of this is baffling. “I can’t just barge into her dance studio. Not without at least asking first.”

Not that asking for permission could possibly be very effective; Yuuri had met Lilia very briefly during the Rostelecom Cup and while it was amicable enough, he knows that indirectly forcing Yakov to coach him when _Yuri_ was competing as well couldn’t have made for a very good first impression.

Yuri rolls his eyes at him. “Well, obviously not. That’s why I already asked her if you could.”

Yuuri cringes. _Damn, that’s even worse_. At least with the Sports Palace, Yuuri had made sure to ask Yakov himself.

“Hurry up, already!” Yuri snaps, tapping his foot.

They’ve probably spent at least a good forty-five minutes now just walking around. And that’s not including the time it took Yuri to make his way over to his and Viktor’s apartment from the skating rink, in the cold no less. Yuuri wants more than anything to crawl back to the other studio, however subpar it might be, only he knows Yuri would tag along with him, wasting even more of his time.

Yuuri releases a low breath and resigns himself to his fate. “ _Hai, hai_ ,” he murmurs.

The two receptionists smile as Yuri passes by, recognizing him easily. Lilia Baranovskaya’s ballet studio is like Minako’s on steroids; larger, grander, and with an air of seriousness to replace the warm atmosphere that Minako’s always had. He wordlessly sits down beside Yuri and begins putting on his ballet shoes, faintly taking note of the matching bruises on both of their feet.

 _When you’re serious about something, you destroy that part of yourself_ —that’s what Minako told him back when he was a five year old with bloody feet. She’d held him close and promised, _One day you’ll be like tempered steel, Yuuri_.

Yuuri tells himself that Minako was only referring to dancing so he doesn’t have to admit to himself that she was lying.

Yuuri pauses mid-stretch and realizes his earbuds are back at his and Viktor’s apartment, plugged into his laptop which is currently sitting on the coffee table. He quietly tuts at himself and wraps one hand around the base of his foot, pulling himself lower until his head is almost touching his knee. Music or no music, it doesn’t really matter in the end.

He just needs to _move_.

Yuuri finishes stretching before Yuri does, and he crosses over to the other side of the room, figuring that Yuri will want enough space for himself. He lets himself float across the Harlequin flooring and dances. Minako used to tell him that he moved like water when he danced, never fighting the music, always just feeling. Yuuri didn’t understand what she meant at the time (still doesn’t, not really), but it stuck with him—he’d be lying if he said that part of the reason so many of his costumes were blue was because of that.

He’s been thinking about Minako a lot lately. Yuuri chalks it up to the fact that she was always the one who’d accompany him on his impromptu trips to the skating rink or the studio, when he’d need to work off the worst of restlessness but couldn’t be left alone either, not after the time he’d gotten lost in the lonely little castle of his own mind and never came home one night.

Yuuri comes to a stop after, what is it? Eight, ten minutes? He catches Yuri staring at him, but instead of whipping his head around and pretending he wasn’t watching, he asks Yuuri, “What program was that just now?”

“Ah,” Yuuri starts, breathing just a little uneven, “it didn’t belong to anything really. I was just messing around.”

“Huh.” The tone of his voice is hard to pin down.

Yuuri’s instantly reminded of the fact that, from what he could gather from various witnesses, he’d managed beat Yuri at a dance off even when he was sixteen glasses of champagne past sober. The gold medalist for the junior division losing to a drunk sixth-place holder. Yuuri casts Yuri a pensive look, wondering if maybe he feels slighted in a way.

“I’ve been dancing for longer than I’ve been skating,” Yuuri explains flimsily.

“Oh."

Yuuri eyes the worn-down patch of fabric on his shoes. He’s going to have to break in a new pair of shoes soon—a routine method of torture that he doesn’t believe he’ll ever get over. “And I majored in Dance, so…”

“Yeah, I know,” Yuri says easily, flicking a stray piece of hair out of his face. “It said so on your JSF bio.”

Oh.

Well, then.

Yuuri’s not sure what surprises him more: the fact that Yuri looked him up, or the fact that Yuri must’ve looked him up after his bio had been updated which would fall…shortly after his rendition of Viktor’s _Stay Close to Me_ went viral.

Yuri’s fiddling with his phone again, sneaking glances at him every now and then, face drawn and lips twisted in thought.

“Something on your mind?” Yuuri prompts.

A blush spreads across Yuri’s nose. He opens his mouth but then quickly snaps it shut. He marches with purpose towards the iPhone dock near their bags and hooks his phone up. After a bit of scrolling through his music folder, a song starts filtering through. It’s in Russian so Yuuri can only really pick out a few words here and there, if at all, but it has a strong beat and enough synth and electric guitar for Yuuri to understand why it’d be right at home on Yuri’s playlist.

Yuri turns towards him and the contrast between the music and the white leather of his ballet slippers is bemusing. For a second, he thinks that Yuri’s actually going to try to dance ballet to this song, but then he points a challenging finger at him, one fist against his hip.

“Dance off,” he declares. “Round two, motherfucker.”

There’s no real, graceful way to decline that, and Yuuri gives him startled, confused little grin. A soft laugh escapes him. “Okay,” he concedes, diplomatically thinking: At least no one’s here to take any pictures this time.

“And if I win”—Yuri’s smirking now, but it feels more nostalgic than competitive—“you have to help me with my step sequence.”

“Okay,” he parrots himself, quieter.

(Yuri’s improved drastically since last year, but that’s business as usual, Yuuri supposes. He’s more in control of his limbs, and his movements are no longer forceful, jarring. But nineteen years is a long time. Brand new shoes versus ones that have been broken in for ages.

Yuuri tells him that he’ll still look over his step sequence tomorrow anyways.

Yuri hides his smile.)

* * *

Celestino had always focused more on the artistic aspects of figure skating than on technique. It’s something that Yuuri realized early on during their contract, and it showed in the programs he arranged for him. Complex and elegant in their presentation but with only the bare minimum of jumps to give him a fighting edge.

Watching Yuri now—through the lens of a “pseudo”-coach rather than a competitor—Yuuri speculates that Yakov is the opposite. Yuri’s jumps are immaculate, polished and sharpened into fine tools for him to use at his disposal; a rare find in someone as young he is, but where Yuri succeeds in nailing the technical part of figure skating, he falls short in his performance component. Better than his pre-Lilia days (who Yuuri remembers he still has yet to thank for letting him use her ballet studio the other day) which Yuuri watched alongside Viktor the night before, curled up on their bed and illuminated only by the light from the laptop screen.

“I’m glad Yurio asked you for help,” Viktor had said, voice low. He yawned and pulled Yuuri closer to him. “He never really listened when we tried to critique his step sequences. He’d tell us that jumps were what mattered anyways but…”

Viktor had smiled and didn’t finish his sentence, pecking Yuuri on the lips when he asked him what he meant and brushed off his curious looks with a, “Nothing, let’s go to sleep, Yuuri?”

This is probably the only time Yuuri could outright tell Yuri what to do without receiving any backlash (whether it be warranted or unwarranted). He doesn’t intend to abuse it, obviously, but it’s a bit of a surreal thought. Back in Detroit, he’d try to give his younger rinkmates pointers whenever he could, particularly when more students started flooding in, all younger and greener with an uncontested sort of determination, and before he knew it, Yuuri was one of the oldest skaters in the club.

But this is Yuri Plisetsky: a prodigy. And competitive figure skating’s current champion.

Secretly Yuuri has to wonder why he’d accept his help but not Viktor’s. Yuri comes to a full stop at the center of the rink and meets Yuuri’s calculating gaze. He lifts his chin as if to say, _Well, Katsudon?_

“You’re traveling too much on your spins,” he supplies after a moment, drumming his fingers against the smooth, white surface of the board behind him where he’d been watching wordlessly. “Your form’s asymmetrical, and you need to lock in more. If you don’t, your center of gravity will be off, Yura.”

Yuri, previously taking accepting Yuuri’s criticism with curt nods, gawks at him. “‘ _Yura_?’” he demands, green eyes flashing and cheeks turning pink.

Yuuri laughs uncertainly and shrugs, one arm crossing over to nurse his sore shoulder. “I figured it’d be a step up from ‘Yurio.’”

“Idiot,” Yuri mutters, hands on his head as he struggles to catch his breath. “Can’t you pick a normal nickname? No one even calls me that.”

Yuuri figures that, if Yuri needs a break, he may as well indulge the non-sequitur. “No one?” he wonders.

Yuri hesitates, then wrinkles his nose in something that’s not quite disgust, sighing exasperatedly and shoving his hair out of his face. Yuri still hasn’t cut his hair. In a few months, Yuuri imagines that it’ll be just long enough to brush his shoulder blades, but Yuri still doesn’t know how to manage it. Some days he puts it in a ponytail, other days he gives up and lets it hang down in tangled curtain, every day he complains about it. Yuri whines about it getting in his mouth, about it being too much of a hassle.

Yuuri had once asked him in passing why he didn’t just cut it off already if he hated it so much, and Yuri stopped in his tracks, the look on his face an echo of what Yuuri saw standing underneath the waterfalls in Hasetsu, when they were both struggling to find their agape and eros.

“Viktor. Before ‘Yurio,’ he’d call me ‘Yura’ sometimes,” Yuri concedes.

Yuuri adjusts his glasses and thinks of the classical pieces Lilia picks out for Yuri, scores that are delicate and reminiscent of ballet—beautiful symphonies that don’t fit with the person Yuuri knows, but that Yuri takes in stride anyways. He thinks of the title “Russian Fairy” and wonders how much it weighs.

It’s only four in the afternoon, but for Russia, it’s late enough for the sun to have set already.

He asks aloud, “What do you want me to call you?”

_What do you want to be thought of as?_

Yuri breaks eye contact first, gaze slowly sliding away before landing on the patch air to Yuuri’s left. It’s something of a nervous habit, Yuuri’s noticed. When headstrong, spitfire Yuri Plisetsky doesn’t feel like hiding his honesty behind barbed insults, he can never quite meet anyone’s gaze.

“…Yuratchka,” he says. “It’s what my grandpa calls me anyways, so.” Yuri shoves his hands into his pockets—the poster child of teenage passive-aggression. “Yeah.”

His grandpa. The one person that comes to mind when Yuri thinks of “unconditional love.” Yuuri’s lips make a little ‘o’-shape, and then he smiles, an involuntary little thing that he can’t help.

“Yuratchka, it is,” he says warmly, taking off his glasses and placing them on the boards.

Yuuri pushes himself off of the boards and glides out to where Yuri is, bringing them back to the task at hand. “I’m going to go through the step sequence again—watch closely.”

They’re the only ones at the rink right now. Lending Yuri a hand while Yakov was around didn’t sit well with Yuuri, and he had his own choreography to work through with Viktor. Yuri gives him a little nod and wipes away the beads of sweat from his forehead with the back of his wrist. It’s getting late, and Yuri’s gotten to the point where he can’t seem to regain his breath no matter how hard he tries—Yuuri’s going to need to call it a day soon, but for now, he sucks in a deep breath and shuts his eyes.

The track starts over again from the top.

The routine sits on Yuuri’s shoulders like an ill-fitting shirt. The tight twists, the spine breaking spins—it’s be better suited for someone smaller and more flexible than Yuuri, and for good reason. Still, Yuuri does what he can, tries to at least perform the components seamlessly and with character even if some parts are impossible for someone with his physique. Yuuri cuts himself off just before the choreography delves into a series of jumps.

Yuri dutifully pauses the track.

“Do you—”

Yuuri’s cut off by the sound of solitary applause. He looks towards the boards and squints.

“Beautifully done,” Lilia compliments. She keeps her expression neutral, but her voice is approving. Yuuri’s not sure which to latch onto.

“What is it?” Yuri calls. It’s a step up from _What do you want now?_ but only just.

Decades after her official retirement from the stage, and Lilia still holds herself like a queen. “Constant work with no rest will only set you back,” Lilia chides. “When Yakov told me that you hadn’t left the rink yet, I decided to come and get you myself.” She casts Yuuri an even look, considering. “I hadn’t realized you were practicing with Katsuki.”

Yuuri reads between the lines with ease. “Go home, Yuratchka,” he tells him, the new nickname rolling off his tongue easily. “We’ll pick up where we left tomorrow.”

He can tell that Yuri would rather keep going while they still have momentum, but clearly Lilia is enough reason for him to comply without too much of a fuss. Either that or the fatigue has finally gotten to him.

“Fine by me,” he yields.

They both make their way back to the bleachers and slip off their skates under Lilia’s watchful gaze. Yuri’s nose crinkles and breathes, “Oh, damn,” when he sees the worn-down state of Yuuri’s feet. They feel shapeless when Yuuri slides his shoes on, and he makes a mental note to ice them later.

“Wait in the car for me, Yuri.” At his curious look, Lilia adds, “I’d like to speak with Kastuki for a moment.”

Yuuri’s looks up at the mention of his name.

Yuri’s wary tone isn’t reassuring in the slightest. “You’re not gonna kill him, are you?”

Lilia sighs and waves him off. “We won’t take long.”

It’s a clear dismissal. Yuri shrugs at him like, _Good fucking luck, buddy_ , and carries himself out of the facility on shaking legs. The shoelaces on his Vans are untied. Yuuri kind of wants to tell him so, but he figures Yuri would just flip him off anyways. It’s two hours past when they really should’ve gone home, their muscles melted and bones practically mush—the prime time for Yuri to be irritable and for Yuuri’s constitution to plummet.

The doors slide shut silently behind Yuri, leaving him behind with nothing but a skating rink, a pair of smelly socks, and a _prima_ whose dances Yuuri used to watch when he was fourteen and had just grown three inches. His arms were too long, and he lacked the coordination to even perform a series of pirouettes. Yuuri had thought he’d have to kiss dancing goodbye for sure at the time, and he refused to be shaken out of his slump until Minako sat him down and shown him one of Lilia’s performances, urging him to listen with, “This woman shot up five inches just months before her debut. You know what people said? They said that she didn’t have the build for a ballerina. You know what she did? She became _prima_. It’s not over for you, Yuuri.”

Yuuri swallows down the trepidation rising in his throat and bows. “Madam Baranovskaya,” he says. “I wanted to thank you for letting me use your ballet studio.”

Lilia’s poker face doesn’t so much as twitch. “You’re a danseur,” she observes, accent thicker than Viktor’s and Yuri’s combined. It takes Yuuri a moment to process her words. “It’s not every day that someone is able to perform my choreography with such ease. Who did you train under?”

Yuuri’s face feels hot. “Minako Okukawa—she took me on as her student when I was five.” _I’ve also had a handful of other teachers in Detroit_ , he thinks to himself, but those courses were more contemporary.

Lilia tilts her head to the side, recognition causing a ghost of a smile to grace her lips. “I know of her,” she muses. “A very charming character. I was there when she won the _Benois de la Danse_. Tell me, Katsuki, do you consider yourself an artist or an athlete?”

Yuuri picks at his thumb, right where the crescent of his nail meets the skin and breaks away from Lilia’s critical stare to fixate on the skating rink. Lines crisscross over each other, marring the ice, and creating patterns in a way that can’t ever be perfectly replicated. There’s no telling which ones are his and which ones are Yuri’s.

“Can’t I just be both?” The sweat on his skin makes the air feel that much cooler, and he turns back to Lilia with a small, sheepish smile. “A figure skater who can land all their jumps will place, but a figure skater who only goes through the motions won’t be remembered.

“Remembered?”

Yuuri wets his lips. “I give myself two more years,” he states, a quiet confession to someone who may as well be a stranger. Ironic, considering he can never open up to the people he’s closest to. Perhaps he just likes the distance. “Three, if I’m being generous. One of these days, I’m going to have to retire, and younger, better competitive figure skaters are going to rise up to replace us.” He takes a deep breath. “Records don’t last, but even so, maybe I’ll be able to inspire someone. Maybe my skating will mean something to them.” Yuuri leans his head to the side and breathes out something between a sigh and a self-deprecating laugh. “‘Skater with a glass heart though,’ so who knows? Sometimes the things that last are the things that shouldn’t.”

Yuuri knows as much as the rest of the world does when it comes to Lilia. She was born and bred in Moscow, went to school in Paris, danced with the Royal Ballet and the Bolshoi Ballet, and was one of the youngest ballerinas to win the Benois de la Danse. And now, at sixty years old and as cold and strong as steel, is revered as one of the greatest choreographers of all time.

And Yuuri knows something that the rest of the world doesn’t: Lilia Baranovskaya is Minako’s Viktor.

Some people make history. Some live long enough to watch their legacy either fade away or prosper like their very own Garden of Eden.

Yuuri has a world record that’s queued up to be shattered like a bullet to a windshield.

* * *

<blockquote> _18:03 >> not sure what the fuck you did, katsudon._

_18:04 >> but lilia says you’re welcome to use her studio whenever_

_18:04 >> wtf ?? _</blockquote>

* * *

Yuuri’s laying on the couch, drowning in one of Viktor’s sweatshirts with his head cushioned against Viktor’s chest and a dozing Makkachin curled up at his feet. He’s close to drifting off as well, the ache in his legs a strangely comforting presence and eyelids getting heavier by the second. It’s the syrupy, cat-nap sort of calm that Yuuri lives for. Viktor’s hand runs up and down the length of his back, feeling the knobs on his spine, and then—

“Do you want to go skating?”

Yuuri blinks at him lethargically. “You want to head back to the rink?”

“No, no,” Viktor assures, “not for practice purposes, just for fun.” He winds the ends of Yuuri’s hair around long, nimble fingers. “There’s a rink I’ve been meaning to take you to.”

Yuuri figures he may as well bite and stretches as much as can without dislocating Makkachin, kisses the warm cappuccino moment goodbye and adjusts his glasses. “Will it be open this late?”

“It should be. It’s an outdoor rink, so.”

Yuuri’s never skated outdoors. Hasetsu’s winters were never cold enough. Yuuri’s days in Detroit consisted of slamming the snooze button on his alarm (set to “Shall We Skate” because Phichit was a special brand of passive-aggressive in the morning), disentangling his legs from coffee-stained bedsheets, and greeting the outside world with nothing but a sleep-addled mind, morning breath, and half-lidded eyes hidden behind his glasses. Rinse and repeat, just like the instructions on Viktor’s shampoo.

Yuuri thinks of the city lights, the night sky, and combines that with the feel of ice beneath his skates.

“What are we waiting for?”

He and Viktor hold hands as if they aren’t competitive figure skaters who are perfectly capable of balancing on their own. He isn’t wearing gloves despite it being well below freezing and at night. When Yuuri had finally noticed this and commented on it, already two blocks away from the apartment, Viktor had rolled his eyes, swinging their arms between them. (“Well of course, I’m not wearing any gloves—they’d cover up the ring.”)

Yuuri had reddened but took Viktor’s icy hand in his anyways, rubbing them to keep them warm; “If your fingers fall off, you won’t be able to wear it at all.”

The rink is more crowded than Yuuri or Viktor had envisioned, given the hour. But Yuuri’s content with gazing at the scene in front him, drinking in the city lights reflecting off of the ice, the crunch of snow coupled with the smooth symphony of blades sliding past him, and the moonlight in Viktor’s hair. A couple of girls grip each other tightly, laughing to themselves and struggling to maintain their balance. A woman in a green peacoat coaxes her child onto the ice, skating backwards and holding her arms out, ready to catch him if he falls. A tall, lanky teen speeds and weaves around people effortlessly.

Yuuri doesn’t think he’s ever shared the ice with so many people.

“It’s the Japanese Yuuri!” A gasp. “Oh, are you on a date? How sweet!”

Yuuri turns slowly, careful not to spill sbiten—overpriced, most definitely but the entrance fee was surprisingly low, and the rink needed to make money somehow. There’s a girl with red hair beaming at the two of them, waving at them with one mitten-clad hand and dragging an indulgent Georgi along with the other. Yuri drifts along just a little ways behind them but picks up speed when he catches sight of him and Viktor, his ripped black jeans and a tiger striped jacket making him look like an extra from _Zoolander_. Yuuri raises his drink to his lips and watches the ragtag group approach them over the rim of his cup.

“If they’re on a date, shouldn’t we leave them alone?” he overhears Georgi ask.

“Too late now,” Yuri comments dryly, as the girl launches herself forward and links arms with Yuuri.

Mila Babicheva, Yuuri’s mind supplies. This year’s silver medalist for the ladies’ division—he knows this because she’d tracked him down after their respective press conferences with a wink and a, “Commemorative photo?” She poked Yuuri’s medal. “We’re already matching and everything.”

He hadn’t seen her since then.

“I almost didn’t recognize you with your glasses,” Mila laughs. “But it’s good to see you—sorry I couldn’t help you move in and everything, family business.” She waves her hand. “Unimportant. How’s life in St. Petersburg been treating you?”

She’s the sort of vibrant that can knock anyone off-balance. That feeling when you expect champagne but get lemonade, and Yuuri stammers, “It’s, um—good.”

So sure, his people skills are still clearance-rack value, but at least he’s consistent.

Yuri nudges her leg with the boot of his skate and makes an agitated little grunt. “I told you before he doesn’t remember anything from last year’s banquet. Stop rubbing your tits on him.”

Mila’s clicks her tongue. “Japanese Yuuri would never say something like that to a girl. See Yuri, this is why Viktor left you.”

Yuri sneers. “Viktor left ‘cause he was thirsty.”

Georgi shares a look with Mila. “So what else is new?”

Viktor frowns at all of them. “ _This_ is why I hightailed it out of Russia.”

Mila rolls her eyes. “Don’t act so above it.” She catches Yuuri’s eye and grins like the Cheshire cat, all teeth and too gleeful. “Vitya’s trying to play it cool now that you’re here, but you would not believe the amount of bull his sorry ass has put us through all this time.”

“At long last,” Georgi tells Viktor, resting his cheek against his palm with a small, nostalgic smile, “someone’s making an honest man of you.”

“Remember when we lost him in an IKEA and found him with his hair stuck in a blender? Or that time we went skiing, but he got on the wrong lift and was too scared to go down a black diamond so Yakov had to ask the resort to send a rescue team after him?”

"Honestly, when I hear ‘bull’ and ‘Viktor’ in the same sentence, I just think about the fact that he roped us into taking pole dancing classes with him after meeting Yuuri.”

Mila snaps her fingers, pointing at Georgi. “The extended Frodo? Never going to be able to un-see that shit.”

Georgi’s eyes flutter shut. “I walked away that day with a new reason to cry.”

Viktor’s ears are tinged pink but not from the cold. He chances a glances at Yuuri, who’s staring at him, a slow-kindling sort of vindictive glee burning in his chest—a product of months’ worth of second-hand embarrassment of his past self, ranging from Viktor finding his posters and _signing_ them to discovering that Yuuri’s old poodle was named after him.

“Stop,” Viktor pleads, a pained lilt to his voice, “why? Why would you bring this back?”

Mila laughs. “Feeling Brexit yet, Vitya?”

“I’m not sure what that means, but yes. I’m feeling brexit.”

She gives him a remorseless nod: “Good.” And then turns and offers Yuuri a congenial smile, “Skate with me, Yuuri?”

Mila has a way of sweeping people up in her pace, and Yuuri gives Viktor closed-mouthed smile and a shrug. They kick off, merging into the cluster of other skaters, ignoring Viktor’s wailing and Yuri’s snickering, skate at a much more relaxed pace than either of them are used to. Choosing to match the flow rather than try to overtake everyone for once. Mila doesn’t let go of his arm, like she thinks he’ll make a break for it if he’s given the chance.

He’d gone along with her on a whim, just to mess with Viktor, but all in all, he’s not sure what to make of her.

This is awkward, he decides, but it may as well happen.

“Good outlook—I like the honesty.”

Once Yuuri realizes his mistake, he shakes his head, “That came out wrong.”

Mila shrugs. “S’all good.”

“I didn’t even mean to say it out loud.”

Her lips quirk up at that. “Been away from home for so long, you start thinking in English? I’ve been there.” He wonders if she’s just one of those people who looks constantly amused by the world. A surplus of faith in humanity with a bit of bite. She says, “Sorry for ambushing your guys’ date—got a bit overexcited there. You and Vitya are just so cute. Honestly. Better than Georgi and Anya.”

“Isn’t Anya Georgi’s betta fish?”

She pats his arm. “If only. Anyways, you never answered my question earlier.” She prompts, “How’s St. Petersburg treating you?”

Yuuri thinks of his parents, the hot springs, the Ice Castle. He adjusts his glasses to give his hands something to do. “Viktor’s happy to be back.”

Mila rolls her eyes and sighs, white puffs dispersing into the winter air. “That still doesn’t answer the question, _Katsudon_ ,” she complains. “Yuri’s been keeping me updated. Apparently, you’ve been keeping to yourself these past few weeks.”

Of all the people to tattle on him, Yuuri wouldn’t have picked _Yuri_ of all people. And to Mila, no less. The thought has sour aftertaste. It probably shows on his face because Mila snorts at him.

“Sorry,” Yuuri says. Because it’s his go-to word, and he knows how to apologize in a whopping total of five different languages: Japanese, English, Thai, Russian, Spanish, and French.

“What for?” Mila drawls.

Yuuri shrugs. “For being difficult, I guess.” A flimsy, half-hearted offering.

Mila counts off her fingers one by one. “We have a five-foot-four ball of teenage angst, a romantic who gets his heart broken every Thursday, and our very own living legend who’s been skipping practice ever since his last win at the Grand Prix Finals. Moody Japanese closet pervert or not, I’d say you’re pretty damn tame.”

Yuuri elects to ignore the last bit, honing in on something she mentioned prior to that. “Viktor was skipping practice?”

Mila wets her chapped lips and shrugs. “Just enough that we didn’t even realize he was gone for the first few days.” She fixes him with a sharp look, blue eyes a stark contrast to the red of her hair. Her smile frank. “Not fun.”

If they round the corner, they’ll have made a full lap around the rink. Georgi, Yuri, and Viktor are right where they’d left them. Yuuri can’t tell if they’re waiting for them or just wanted to talk without having to weave past the other patrons. Mila comes to a full stop though, stepping out of the way gracefully, and with their arms still linked, Yuuri’s forced to follow.

“Have you ever been the best at something, Yuuri?”

It’s a heavy kind of quiet. They look at each other like there’s broken glass on the floor and either someone’s going to have to clean it up or leave it for others to trample over, and it’s going to suck no matter what.

“Yeah, me neither,” Mila admits, taking his silence as an answer.

Yuuri’s tempted to argue against that, but—from what little he knows of her—he likes her too much to patronize her. Mila’s won her fair share of golds before, even if just this past year she had to walk away with second place. But he knows as well as she does that a gold every now and then isn’t anything compared to Viktor’s five-year reign.

“Me neither,” she repeats, “but I bet it’s lonely.” She smiles up at him sweetly. “Sometimes satisfaction can kill inspiration. Makes you stagnant, in a way.”

 _If you don’t have any inspiration left, you’re as good as dead_ —that’s what Yuri had said to him too.

Mila Babicheva: eighteen-years old, the reddest hair Yuuri has ever seen, a bite in her smile and—the tattoo that she’ll keep hidden until her deathbed and beyond—a “ _Property of Sara Crispino_ ” inked on her left ass cheek. Got it done in Belgium, sobriety having kissed her goodbye eight drinks ago and one hot mess of a Sara on her arm who was in no better condition. Bounded through the doors of the first tattoo parlor Mila could find, yelled “Trust exercise!” and the rest is history.

She’s not Phichit.

She’s not Yuuko.

But when she grabs his wrist and pulls him back towards Viktor, Yuri, and Georgi, Yuuri lets her.

* * *

So.

For all Yuuri is apparently welcome to Lilia’s studio, he finds himself banished from Sports Palace two days later. Just for the day. Or until Viktor finally settled down and focused on his own routine—whichever comes first, although Yuuri not banking on it being the former.

While Viktor’s self-given breaks away from practice to spend time with Yuuri or even just orbit around him as he skates were endearing (if not a little mortifying, given Mila’s nonstop cooing and Georgi’s lovesick sighs), no one could ignore the fact that the European Championships were right around the corner. Procrastination evidently wasn’t something that sat well with Yakov, and Yuuri couldn’t even find it in himself to feel insulted when Yakov looked at him, red-faced, and asked if he could make himself scarce.

And so, Yuuri finds himself back at Lilia’s ballet studio, deciding he still had enough energy left to keep practicing even after his normal training with Viktor. It still feels a little bizarre to him, and he spends a several minutes hovering at the entrance, half-convinced that Lilia’s invitation was only a superficial one despite knowing full-well that a woman like her would never say something she didn’t mean.

Ultimately, it’s the cold that wears him down. Yuuri’s breath comes out in a puff of white air, and he steps inside, moving towards the reception desk just off to the left.

“Привет,” Yuuri greets, the word rolling off his tongue so unlike Viktor’s and Yuri’s, “я Yuuri Katsuki. Um…”  He realizes only then that just saying Lilia Baranovskaya gave him permission to use her studio would carry about as much clout as Celestino telling Phichit that no, he couldn’t adopt two more hamsters. Not to mention, his vocabulary—while improving—was still shaky at best, and the best sentence he could string together to explain his circumstances would be: “You know _Harry Potter_? This is Hogwarts, and Dumbledore said I could come.” 

His worries come to a halt though, when recognition crosses one of the receptionists’ face, and she nods at him. “Madam Baranoskaya told us,” she tells him, accent thick but understandable. “Show you room?” 

“If you wouldn’t mind. Uh—Если бы ты мог.” 

She says something to the other receptionist that Yuuri doesn’t catch and gets to her feet, gesturing toward the hallway on Yuuri’s left. “Follow.”  

He keeps just a few paces behind her, carpet floors muting both of their footsteps. Yuuri glances into dance rooms idly as he pass by. There aren’t many children; he didn’t expect there to be—starting from ground zero and building on up couldn’t be an appealing prospect for someone at Lilia’s skill level, not when others could teach beginners the basics. No, the ones Lilia chooses are the ones who’ve already climbed as high as they could on their own, the spectaculars who were either born with an unfair heaping of talent or willpower or both. He spots a couple of Asian students, catches bits of French here and there, mingling with accented English and low Russian. When he hears wisps of Japanese, his chest tightens. 

The receptionist halts at one of the doors, lips pursed. Yuuri peers inside to find five students already working. Three ballerinas and two danseurs—ranging from their late teens to early twenties by the looks of them. She casts him an apologetic look.

“Sharing okay?”

Yuuri shuffles, thinking of the scant number of times he’s had to share a room with other ballet students. When he was younger, he could never bring himself to dance to the best of his abilities in front of his peers—something that even Minako eventually caved in to and scheduled him for private lessons instead. In Detroit, reserving a room was never much of a hassle, okay with performing for other but not with letting people watch him practice. The unfinished sketch, the unedited articles, the bare framework, the way he still hadn’t perfected his choreography all feeling too intimate to share with anyone.

Yuuri wets his lips and says, “It’s fine.”

She gestures towards the door before turning on her heel and walking back from where they came from. Task completed.

Two of the students are already casting him curious looks over their shoulders. Yuuri can hear an acapella version of “The Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy” filtering through the speakers. Large French windows make up the majority of one of the walls while the ballet barre and mirror make up the other.

Yuuri enters, giving them all a quick smile before ducking his head and switching out his converse for canvas slippers. He’s not against their choice of music, but he puts his earbuds in anyways and selects “In Regards to Love: Eros.” This late into the game, Yuuri knows each note and rest by heart, but the song Viktor chose for his short program had been stuck in his head ever since he finally let Yuuri listen to it. Yuuri figures he could counter it with his own piece.

He props one leg over the ballet barre and stretches, muscles already starting to have stiffen up since he left the Sports Palace. At twenty-four, Yuuri is too old for a competitive figure skater and all too young to the rest of the world; Yuuri only knows that his stiffening joints are like a biological countdown he’s forced to check every time he practices. He hooks the temple of his glasses over the top of his shirt and stares out the window, watching how the flurries of snow get tossed to and fro through hazy eyes.

For love.

That was the theme of Viktor’s comeback. When someone—Yuri, possibly, but Yakov most likely—pointed out that it was too close to Yuuri’s theme, he’d smiled as if he were posing for a picture and dodged the question altogether.

When Yuuri finishes stretching, he takes his time going some of the basics that Minako taught him, careful to stay out of the way of the other occupants of the room. He hadn’t seen Viktor’s free skate. He was adamant that it be a surprise, but he’d caught glimpses of what Viktor had in store for his short program.

Yuuri smiles wryly to himself. For love, eros, agape, and heartbreak. It’s a mess, but in the way a child’s drawing is.

His song ends in time for him to hear: “—the reason Nikiforov left?”

Yuuri’s starts but recovers quickly enough. Passing his falter off for a coarse transition into his next position. He swallows thickly. He’d heard it enough from commentators, netizens, and even other figure skaters, but in person—that was a bit more uncommon. Hated or not, people usually held their peace, at least when he was in the same room as them. A voice sounding very much like Mari tells him to ignore them. Yuuri turns down the volume on his phone and pretends the foreboding swelling in his chest isn’t actually there.

He throws himself into the ballet equivalent of his Eros routine and put on the well-worn illusion of a meddling woman who stole the playboy from the world—the only one who was of any worth to him. It fits in a way that makes his skin burn, and Yuuri feels like he’s been punched in the gut 

“Yeah, I think so—I almost didn’t recognize him.”

Hypothesis One: Some of them are international students and so they’re relying on English to communicate, thinking that Yuuri’s listening to music. Hypotheses Two: They’re banking on the fact that he’ll be able to understand them.

He’s not sure which he likes less.

“I got to admit, I expected a little more from the guy who stole Russia’s ace. Plisetsky beat him too, yeah?” They laugh. “Nikiforov’s probably thinking he picked the wrong ‘Yuri.’”

There are more posts and comments about Yuuri than he can keep track of, but he thinks he’s read more than a thousand variations of the same, tired discussion. Countless threads and articles of how he single-handedly brought an end to Viktor’s era, the fact that he’s coming back anyways being swept under the rug in favor of something to gossip about, someone to drag. This isn’t anything new, Yuuri knows. He chews on it, but the same high that had him flaunting what he’d done during the Cup of China isn’t there anymore.

Nine months, and it’s turned bland and bitter. Habituation without the sensitization.

“I heard Viktor’s going to keep coaching him, even though he’s making a return at Championships.”

“Seriously? That’s just going to drag him down.”

Yuuri’s execution of his emboîté would have Minako in tears and give Lilia a hemorrhage. ****

“That’s nothing compared to what I heard—there’ve been a couple rumors floating around that they’re actually engaged.”

He curls his hand into a fist, and the ring on Yuuri’s finger presses into his skin uncomfortably. He grits his teeth and wills himself to power through, but he knows in his gut that he’s lost. This isn’t eros.

A snort of laughter, cold. Derisive. “He may as well have killed him.”

It comes back to this. Again and again like Groundhog Day but only for Yuuri’s old aches and anxieties that manifest in the way he acts and thinks like he’s in a game of chicken only there’s no out and his opponent doesn’t lose a damn thing if they wind up colliding.

Yuuri yanks the earbuds out of his ears, shoulders his bag, and leaves the room without even changing his shoes.

* * *

Yuuko had worded it best, back when they still ice danced together from time to time, and she could land a cleaner triple axel than him. “It’s like your mind’s playing on the opposite team, Yuuri-kun,” she’d said, seventeen and finally shorter than Yuuri. “It does everything it can to sabotage you.”

Viktor’s chest rises and falls evenly beneath Yuuri’s loosely closed fist and what little moonlight streams through the drapes kisses the soft pink of his lips but leaves shadows over his eyes. A modern day Endymion. Four weeks ago, all Yuuri had to fall back on was a choppy Skype call and a pixelated Viktor, distorted by the low-quality camera. Yuuri would take in the apartment behind Viktor, the kitchen joining with the living room, and think, _Soon_. Four weeks ago, Yuuri was in Japan but still felt like he was a little over four-thousand, five-hundred miles from where he needed to be.

He stares listlessly at the digital clock on Viktor’s nightstand, numbers changing at a painstaking pace. Any slower and they might as well be counting backwards. The silence is a foreboding type of deafening and suffocating all at once—the pause just before the jump-scare, and Yuuri feels like he’s being mummified by his own skin. Constricting, agitating.

He’s wired, but he needs to be sleeping. There are purple sleeping pills in the medicine cabinet, but Yuuri knows that if he takes them now, he’ll carry that dull, sluggish feeling all throughout practice. A lateral move with no real improvement. Yuuri lets out a shaky breath and scratches at the skin on his upper arms.

There’s a key to the rink hanging on the wall—just next to the door and the extension chair—that Viktor either managed to get his hands on through bribery or by sheer virtue of Viktor Nikiforov. He thinks about it like an itch and gives in when he’s T-minus ten seconds away from losing his mind. Yuuri carefully wriggles out from underneath Viktor’s arm and creeps toward the door, one arm reaching out to snag the key off of its perch before wrestling his shoes on and tucking the laces behind the tongue of his boot rather than tying them, knowing he’s going to be replacing them with ice skates soon anyways.

He makes sure to turn on his phone as he heads out the door, just in case Viktor wakes up in the middle of the night wondering where he is. Although by now, he knew Yuuri well enough to not even need to ask.

It’s four in the morning, and time in St. Petersburg is as frozen as the Malaya Neva River, petrified by the splintering cold, same as Yuuri. The burst of nervous energy after achieving a new milestone in sleep deprivation makes his arms and hands shaky, but his footsteps are weighed down like the Tuchkov Bridge is covered in tar. Yuuri’s head is racing, thinking about everything and anything, but if anyone were to ask him what was on his mind, he’d having nothing to say.

He releases a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding when the Yubileyny Sports Palace finally comes into view. Yuuri inserts the key with shaky, fingers uncoordinated and stumbles into the facility like some of drunken burglar. It’s four-thirty in the morning, and Yuuri’s training starts in three hours—Viktor will wake up and walk to the rink by himself with a bagel and a cup of yogurt and try to coax Yuuri into eating something. He’ll keep a sharper eye on him than normal, and he’ll ask him (frequently) if he needs a break even though what he’s really trying to ask is, _Are you all right_?

Yuuri stretches for only half of the time it usually takes him before stepping onto the ice. If Viktor or Celestino—or anyone, quite frankly—were there, they’d rip him a new one, but they’re not there. Just him. And maybe that’s the problem.

Yuuri puts his earbuds in, blessedly blocking out some of the ringing in his ears that’d been plaguing him since he woke up, and listens to the first song that catches his eye. His phones drifting dangerously close to only twenty percent. Green pixel battery turning yellow, a product of the cold and Yuuri’s knack for cutting the battery life in half. _Do Not Use While Charging_ —as if anyone had time for that. He gives it an hour, an hour and a half at most.

He sticks it on shuffle and starts skating. Sometimes going over his own programs, sometimes running through old routines in the name of boredom, trying them on like old clothes from when he was a teenager. They feel lackluster now, embarrassing like looking through old selfies, and Yuuri’s beginning to understand why Minako always hinted that— _perhaps_ —he should start looking for a different choreographer. Preferably one who was well aware of where his strengths lay.

He skates the free program he’d prepared for last year’s Grand Prix Finals to a song that doesn’t match the routine and knows this: even if he hadn’t flubbed all his jumps last year, he still might not have placed. Good enough to make it to the Grand Prix Final, but not enough to win all—that was the nature of his old free program. The thought leaves a bitter aftertaste like all the others.

The trill of the piano followed soon after by the strings is jarring and brings Yuuri back to reality. Lazy figure eights and Choctaw turns coming to a halt. Breathe in. Breathe out. Yuuri lets his eyes drift shut and tilts his head back.

“Allegro Appassionato in B minor.” His mind supplies, _Yuratchka’s piece_.

Yuuri recalls what he can of Yuri’s routine.

He goes for it before he can convince himself otherwise.

It’s not perfect, naturally. And what little self-preservation and responsibility Yuuri has at the moment is enough to make him to forego a good portion of Yuri’s jumps, not wanting to push himself too hard on only two hours of sleep or hurt himself when no one else is around. It becomes less of a free program though and more like some parody of a ballet, only on solid ice instead of Harlequin.

He wonders if Yuri would snap at him and tell him to focus on his own program, goddamn it. Or if, by seeing it, Yuri would be able to improve the performance component of his routine even further. It’s a surprisingly brazen and prideful thought, and it gets dismissed as quickly as it surfaces.

Yuuri’s phone only manages to get twenty seconds into “Yuujin A” before dying, and he sighs, pulling out his earbuds and skating back to the bench to dig out his phone charger and hopefully hunt down an outlet. He only makes it to the boards before noticing his audience of one, still standing at the entrance of the skating rink as if he was the interloper and not the other way around.

“Yakov.”

He’s tempted to ask him, _Why are you here_? but well—kettle, meet pot.

Yakov walks toward the boards, closing the gap so he doesn’t have to raise his voice to span the distance between them. “I thought that Yura’s step sequence had been improving,” he comments. “Though I must admit, I’m surprised you have enough time to be picking up other people’s routines.”

A compliment in the form of subtle, seemingly backhanded lectures. Yuuri figures it might be the only feasible way for him to show his approval without running the risk of inflating anyone’s ego. It’s a callous thing to do, but understandable given who his students are.

“Yuratchka and I made a bet,” Yuuri offers, by way of explanation. He purposely forgets to mention that he was the one who actually won though.

Yakov makes his way over to the bleachers across from Yuuri but doesn’t sit down. “Lilia told me that—out of everyone—your help is the one that Yura would accept. She’s a dramatic old woman, but she’s rarely wrong,” he sighs, gesturing back towards the rink. “How long have you two been training together?”

Yuuri quickly counts off the days in his head. “A little more than a week. A week and a half, I think.”

“That’s a level four step sequence,” Yakov notes. “It’d be one thing if you were able to pick out Yura’s weaknesses but skating alongside? I wouldn’t have expected that.”

“I—” Yuuri cuts himself off with a frown, unsure of what he was even going to say. _I’m good at step sequences? My performance components are really all I have going for me?_ “Yurio helped me with my quad Salchow a while back.”

 Yakov scratches his neck. “You couldn’t land it before?”

Yuuri thinks of his despairingly low success rate pre-Yuri. “Not really, no,” he says, and even that feels like an understatement. “It’s why Celestino always traded it out for a—”

“A triple or a quad toe loop?” At Yuuri’s taken aback look, Yakov nods to himself. “When you copied Vitya’s routine, you replaced the quad Salchow with a triple. Looking through some of your other programs, I noticed you rarely attempted anything more than a quad toe loop during competition,” he adds.

Yuuri shifts his weight over to his right foot. “I’m surprised you watched my old routines.”

Yakov clicks his tongue at him. “It’s my job to keep an eye on the competition.” He scowls. “And after Vitya ran off to take care of his dog—damn mutt—it wasn’t a matter of whether I wanted to watch them or not, I needed to. I’m a coach, and it’s what I do. Even for one-time only students.” Yakov sits down, taking off his hat. He rests it against his knee and sighs, levelling him with a look Yuuri can’t place. “You would’ve been better off had you gone to someone besides Cialdini.”

Yuuri recoils as if he’s been struck. 

He thinks of Detroit, of feeling like a misplaced toy soldier, and Celestino’s unfaltering support. The days leading up to competition, when he was hanging by a thread and couldn’t keep anything down, and Celestino stayed by his side and believed in him even when Yuuri didn’t. He reflects on the fact that after five years of blood, sweat, and tears, Yuuri never managed to _win_ anything beyond nationals and a few smaller competitions here and there, and still, Celestino never once told him he wasn’t good enough. Yuuri looks at Yakov and thinks bitterly, _What do you know?_

Mari always used to say that he was more of the type to cry rather than get angry when someone’s slighted him, but this single, off-handed statement gets him seething.

In another life, a different Yuuri, he might’ve said what he’d thought: _You have a lot of pride for an old man. Although I suppose it’s not unaccounted for. You currently have four of Russia’s best competitive figure skaters under your care, and you’ve been churning out champions long before I even set foot on the ice—but my short-comings are my own goddamn fault. Don’t try to pin them on my coach as if you could do any better_.

But Yuuri holds his tongue and keep his hands pressed on top of the boards like they’re shackled there.

There are three things Yuuri knows. One, the ice he’s standing on is not Hasetsu’s. Two, the man in front of him is the only reason he’s allowed to be there. And three, Yakov isn’t wrong.

It’s the sort of realization that leaves Yuuri stumped, melancholic. Like he’s reading through his favorite childhood book but it’s not as good as he remembers it being, and it’s not because of the Mandela effect. Yuuri will always be grateful to Celestino in the same way he thinks back on his dog days with Minako fondly. But Yuuri jadedly recalls that unfaltering kindness and patience aren’t synonymous with having faith in someone, and his receipts are in the forms of countless skating programs. All the jumps in the front half and only one quad to speak of—safe is all they were.

Yuuri swallows, trying to dislodge the lump in his throat. He thinks: I haven’t changed really, have I? Yuuri’s frustration is the throb in his chest and the stinging sensation at the back of his eyes, and suddenly, he wants to be struck by lightning, wants to drown in a flood.

He decides, _I’m going to do something very stupid_.

Yuuri fixes Yakov with a crooked on smile. “You think you would’ve been able to take me farther than Celestino was able to? If that’s the case,” he continues, backing away from the boards to drop into a perfect forty-five degree angle of a bow, “will you be my coach?”

There it is.

The words ring out like a gunshot. It doesn’t hurt to say nearly as much as Yuuri expected it to—or maybe it did, and that’s why it feels like his body and mind are two very separate things. Pulled the trigger but didn’t check to see where he was aiming at.

“You really think that’s such a good idea, Katsuki?”

Of course not. It’s why he asked in the first place.

“Viktor’s already been away from the ice for so long,” Yuuri says at last. He straightens but doesn’t look up. “And I’m partially to blame for that. I stole him.” The words come out raspy, throat too dry. Yuuri’s tired and irrationality is an even older friend than Phichit. “I don’t want to be the reason Viktor can’t focus on his comeback. I don’t want to be the reason that Viktor Nikiforov is dead.”

Yuuri doesn’t have to see it to know that Yakov is scowling. “You think that, since his return, Vitya’s performance has been lackluster?” When he doesn’t respond, Yakov sighs and puts his hat back on. “I think those glasses of yours are out of date.”

Yuuri’s hand dangles at his side uselessly.

“If I tell you to go home, you won’t will you?”

Celestino never actively tried to improve Yuuri’s stamina. It was just a byproduct of sleepless nights and finding refuge in practicing. Yuuri’s mind is disjointed, but he’s not ready to call it quits. Yakov gives him a once-over and figures as much.

“I’m not taking you on as my student,” Yakov clarifies. Finally.

Yuuri’s lips form a thin, tense line and makes a frayed sound of acknowledgement, not trusting himself to speak.

“Again. From the top,” Yakov orders.

Yuuri stares, blank.

“Don’t drag your left leg when you take off during your quad flip and don’t disregard your step sequence. You consistently score high points on your performance component, but if all you focus on are the jumps, you’ll just get a repeat of Barcelona. The step sequence and spins are your specialty so respect that.

“And for the love of God,” he adds, stepping forward to tap the gold band on Yuuri’s hand, “when you find someone who can drive you to want to be a better person and vice versa, don’t let them go.”

* * *

Somedays Yuuri doesn’t even register the weight on his or the hollow feeling in his chest.

No one really comments on it when Yuuri books a ticket to Ostrava, even though he doesn’t really have any business being at the European Championships.

They wind up booking a total of five rooms with Yuri and Georgi being forced to pair up, Yuuri and Viktor wanting to pair up, and everyone else getting a single. But still one by one, they all funnel into one room for the time being (aka, until Yakov calls them and it’s down to business).

Viktor and Yuuri are lounging on the bed while Yuri sprawls across one of the hotel room’s recliners, lazily flicking through all of the channels, trying to find something interesting to watch when Mila strolls in armed with a black box and her phone browser opened up on a Pinterest post. A dangerous mix. She sets up shop in Viktor and Yuuri’s room, commandeering the desk that they’ve otherwise ignored. She snaps her fingers and points the seat in front of her, and Georgi wordlessly sits down.

“What are you doing?” Yuri asks flatly, not turning his attention away from the TV despite being somewhere in the mid-three-hundreds and still not having found anything worth watching. Hotel television at its finest.

“Lip art,” Mila supplies, holding up her phone for them to see. “For Georgi’s SP.”

“That’s tomorrow.”

“True, but I figure it wouldn’t hurt to test it out first.” She sends a wicked little smile Viktor’s way. “We wouldn’t want a repeat of 2011’s NRW Trophy, do we, Vitya?”

Viktor doesn’t so much as twitch from where he’s lying on the bed, head in Yuuri’s lap. “What’s that, Mila? You want to talk about nationals from 2012?" 

Yuuri decides he doesn’t want to know what happened during the 2011 NRW or 2012’s Russian Championships. He squints at Mila’s phone, taking in the black-colored lips layered with white glitter on the bottom lip and silver on the top. There’s a splash of red, starting from the center of the model’s lips and dripping down toward the bottom—it looks like bloody drool to Yuuri, but he keeps that particular thought to himself. Go big or go home, he reckons.

“I feel like this is one of those things that only works on Pinterest,” he comments.

“Ye of little faith,” Mila sighs.

Yuri makes a frustrated little growl. “What’s the point of even having a TV if every single channel is just going to be a shit-fest?”

“You passed _Romeo + Juliet_ a few channels back,” Georgi supplies helpfully, trying his best to keep his mouth from moving.

“My point exactly.” He rolls his eyes and looks at Yuuri. “It doesn’t matter if the leads have as much chemistry as Natalie Portman and Hayden Christensen, Georgi will still buy it on Blu-ray.”

Viktor hides his smile behind a cough.

Mila gives Georgi a warning look, carefully patting the white glitter onto his bottom lip. “Speak and die, Georgi,” she threatens. “Speak and die.”

Yuuri leans over, inspecting her handiwork. “It looks nice,” Yuuri says, giving Georgi an approving smile.

They all elect to ignore Yuri’s comment of: “He looks like gay, goth vampire that doesn’t know how to use a napkin.”

“How’s he supposed to eat?” Viktor wonders aloud.

Mila tosses the dirty brushes to the side and picks up her phone, swiping to the left to access her camera and points it at Georgi’s lips. She tests out a couple filters before settling on Noir, tongue poking between her teeth. “He can’t. Art is pain, and what not.”

“I think it’s ‘beauty is pain.’”

Mila waves him off. “Schematics. Pucker up, Georgi, this is going on my account.”

Somedays Yuuri can laugh so much that he feels weightless.

* * *

 Some days it’s all Yuuri can do to not sink.

Viktor smells like a strange mixture of winter air and dried sweat but when he pulls Yuuri into a hug, he can just pick out the lingering traces of his shampoo. His arms are shaking, and he’s cold where Yuuri’s bundled in layers upon layers of socks and sweaters. Creaky joints and unchecked stress fractures are the medals the media and fans don’t care about—so long as when they wind the box and the music plays, it’s fine even if the gears are a heartbeat away from breaking. When that happens, buy a new a one.

“What grade are you feeling, Yuuri?”

Yuuri has to think on that one. “…C-,” he mumbles into his chest. “Working up to a C. Viktor, do you ever get bored with yourself? Like you’ll never be enough to outgrow your problems?”

“Yes.”

“Oh.”

“But then you came, and that changed.” Lips press against his temple. “Do you need to go skating?”

“…No, I think—just hold me, maybe?”

"Always."

**Author's Note:**

> Yuuri Katsuki is twenty-four years old, and he's had the same god-forsaken problems for so long, they’ve lost their flavor. And that’s just Yuuri, isn’t it? The feeling of one, two, three, only without the anticipation. The sensation of being surprised but without the high. Boring. Predictable. A never-ending throb.
> 
> But there’s a place a little over four thousand, five hundred miles away from Hasetsu where maybe—just maybe—he might bury them for good.
> 
> Yuuri breathes in, eyes closed.
> 
> “Viktor?”
> 
> “Mm?”
> 
> “The seagulls here. At first, they reminded me think of Hasetsu. Now, they just make me think of St. Petersburg.”
> 
> * * *
> 
> **Author’s Note: What is this garbage? Your guess is as good as mine; started off as a drabble, but it grew like a fucking wart and I’m posting it now so that I finally ignore it. Kudos to you, ladies, gentlemen, and my non-binary friends if you’ve made it to the end!**
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> **On a side note—“СцоцтигньоЙ Кагьчачпионщ” was actually written on the wall (as seen in episode 4). I tried to match up the characters to what I saw as best as possible, but yeah, when I put it through a Russian translator it didn’t really make any sense.**


End file.
